Tuesday was a pretty productive day for about 220 of the nation's Catholic bishops, whose annual meeting, in Baltimore, made news on several fronts.

AP Photo/Rob CarrArchbishop George Niederauer, left, and Chicago Cardinal Francis George, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, share a laugh after a news conference Monday in Baltimore. Near the top of any list would be the findings from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, telling bishops that whatever the causes of the epic sexual abuse scandal that rocked the church beginning in 2002, it seems that one can be ruled out: too many gay priests.

Because the victims of clergy sexual abuse were overwhelmingly boys, the role of homosexuality among ranks of the clergy was very much in the wind. Instead, the interim report finds, it was more a matter of the easy availability of boys and "sexual confusion" among ill-trained seminarians

That's only a partial finding from the independent, $2 million study, which will be finished next year. If you missed it, our story can be found here.

Elsewhere, the bishops approved a document called “Life-Giving Love in an Age of Technology,” which attempts to communicate in plain language the reasons behind the Catholic church's opposition to a range of infertility treatments.

The bishops also issued a pastoral letter defending marriage, in its traditional form, as a public good, and not as a private ideal, as bishops fear many young adults see it today.

Against that backdrop, meanwhile, another same-sex marriage initiative, this one in Washington D.C., cleared a major hurdle in getting to a public vote, despite the energetic opposition of a Maryland Pentecostal pastor, profiled here by the Washington Post.

Finally, the bishops approved new instructions to doctors and administrators of Catholic hospitals around the country on the necessity of providing food and water to profoundly disabled patients. (There are no Catholic hospitals in metro New Orleans, but there are church-run long-term care facilities).

The directive includes patients like Terri Schiavo, who are living in a persistent vegetative state.

Crucially, it regards tube-supplied food and water as basic, humane care owed every person, rather than optional medical treatment that doctors can legitimately withhold. (See Part V).

The policy does not regard tube-feeding as mandatory, and says it may be stopped if it becomes "excessively burdensome," as when the patient is near death and the support is no longer effective.